D.C. Greenhouse Closes
By Hannah Lepow | Online Only | July 24, 2008
The greenhouse at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., closed in May.
Credit: J. Carroll
When Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral announced in May that it was closing its 58-year-old greenhouse, the neighborhood rallied immediately. Last month a new group presented cathedral officials with a proposal to reopen the greenhouse as a for-profit business, which would lead educational outreach programs at local schools.
The greenhouse closed on June 26, a result of the cathedral's substantial cutbacks. In May, in its first layoff in decades, the cathedral laid off 33 people, including clergy.
When Ann Scoffier, a member of the ad hoc neighborhood group Save the Greenhouse Coalition, found out the greenhouse was closing, she immediately e-mailed neighbors.
"I got a deluge of responses," Scoffier says. "And people just started calling each other. People started pouring in."
To date more than 1,000 residents have signed the group's online petition, and Scoffier estimates that between $80,000 and $125,000 has been raised in foundation and individual pledges.
Last month the Save the Greenhouse Coalition presented a business plan to the cathedral's dean, bishop, and chapter. Under the proposal, the cathedral would bring in a private company to run the facility. Two former managers of the greenhouse have contacted the coalition, offering to help with the transition. Any donations raised would be used to fund botanical and ecological education programs at local schools.
"The cathedral [talks] about the environment all the time on a global level," says Scoffier, noting that it hosted an interfaith conference on global warming in 2006. "This is about preserving local plant life," she says. "It fits with the cathedral's mission."
The cathedral currently has no plans for the greenhouse site and has no plans to demolish it. If it wanted to, the cathedral would need the approval of the city's historic preservation board, since it's a National Historic Landmark.
The cathedral's dean, the very Rev. Samuel Lloyd III, said in a June 27 statement that the cathedral will "consider carefully the avenues [the Save the Greenhouse Coalition] is suggesting."
"Of course [the final decision] is up to the cathedral," says Cecilia Calvo, a member of the Coalition. "But it's very promising that the cathedral has been interested in meeting with us. Our message of help and support is being entertained and seriously considered."
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Comments
Submitted by ladybug at: August 1, 2008
Strongly urge that the Cathedral allow the reopening of the Greenhouse. Very dark day for Cathedral when it closed the Greenhouse.